TechLifeMashup.com

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Rob Malda

Steve — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:49:01 +0000

Slashdot.com is a technology news site where users submit related content that is then either approved for public view or denied by system administrators. What started out as a simple hobby blog quickly transformed into a cash generating machine for one entrepreneur who found career success through this website. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Rob Malda in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Rob Malda
Age: 34
Location: Michigan
Claim to fame: Slashdot (A technology based news website geared towards tech enthusiasts)
Initial cost: <$1000

How He Did It:

Rob Malda graduated from Hope College in 1997 with a degree in Computer Science. While Malda attended school he started a website called slashdot, which would report on daily happenings within the technology space from stories submitted by users and approved by Rob. The site quickly grew to over 100,000 page views by June 1998 taking in around $20,000 per month in ad revenue. The following year in June of 1999, Malda sold his site for about $8 million under the condition that he would still work as the site operator for the new company who bought the site. Malda now works as the site administrator from his home in Michigan and also writes a column for a local computer magazine.

Lessons Learned:

A simple blog or past time can turn into so much more than expected. Don’t be afraid to try something because you never know what ideas will grow into.
Traffic and profit are two of the best ways to measure the success of a business venture with the second holding the most weight.
Never be content with anything – always be looking for new ways to grow and change things up
Remember to put the user/customer at the front of everything you do – they decide your success
Internet businesses make excellent start-ups – low cost and usually low risk.

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Jeri Ellsworth.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and his entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources:

Attack of the Blog

5 Quick Ways To Save on Your Next Startup

Steve — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:26:06 +0000

Courtesy of Moiz

You have to spend money to make money or so the saying goes. Any entrepreneur will tell you that you’re always going to have to spend a little money at least even if it’s just to buy your domain and hosting for your next startup. Most entrepreneurs and first timers actually spend much more than a little bit of money getting their idea off the ground and running. Knowing how to save money during the early stages of any startup can be crucial in the long-term success of the business. Today we take a look at 5 quick ways you can save money on your next startup, which in the end means more money in your pockets.

Saving Money:

Mint recently published a detailed article discussing the early stages of startups. In the article, they mention many different ways one can save money during this period within their startup to help assure the company lasts. Here now are the five I found to be the most useful and practical for any entrepreneur out there (in no particular order):

Perform project costing – Identify what type of consumer group within your customer basis will most likely spend the most and then focus your efforts on that group.

Track financial data – Keep track of your earnings, spending, and overall performance to honestly measure your business.

Keep low overhead – Don’t order and store more than you need for any business as it is a wasted cost.

Focus on profits – The money you are making is your best measure of overall success

Invest in your startup – Less is more. Invest money where needed back into your business and save the rest.

It’s always important to know how to save money, but it’s even more important to know when it’s your business and your money that is being spent. The success of your business could depend on it.

Source: Mint

Mythbusting Failure As A Entrepreneur

Steve — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:24:23 +0000

A fellow entrepreneur once said to me fail often, but fail fast. The idea behind this being that we learn the most from our failures, which only make us that much more likely to succeed the next time around as entrepreneurs rarely succeed on the first try. By failing fast, you learn a lot, but also minimize your costs, time, and lost of resources in the process. Recently, Adam Savage of the popular TV show Mythbusters gave a speech on the topic of failure highlighting his (many) failures throughout his career to get to where he is today. Whether your a fan or not of the show (I am), there is no denying the success of Adam from Mythbusters. Failure is a common topic in the entrepreneur space and knowing how to work with it a crucial to any entrepreneurs’ success. Adam brings up many good points that any entrepreneur can apply to their own life and goals. See for yourself!

Run Time: 1 hour (w/ Q&A at the end)

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Jeri Ellsworth

Steve — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:32:49 +0000

Courtesy of explo

Jeri Ellsworth isn’t a name many entrepreneur enthusiasts may know of the top of their heads, but she is a true entrepreneur in every sense of the word with quite a strong following. Not only is she a computer circuit wiz-kid developing game systems that can fit in the controller alone, but she is also a very savvy small business owner as you will soon find out. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Jeri Ellsworth in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how she did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Jeri Ellsworth
Age: 36
Location: Washington
Claim to fame: C64-DTV (Custom made controller with the Commodore 64 sytem and 30 games built into it.)
Initial cost: <$1000

How She Did It:

Jerri Ellsworth was born and raised in Oregon where she attended her local high school for only a few years. She would drop out to pursue making and selling custom-made dirt race cars, which proved to be quite profitable for the only then teenager. At 21 in 1995, she left that business to start a new business with a friend building and selling custom computers locally in her area. Ellsworth took to a strong fascination with computer circuitry and starting experimenting with computer chip development in her spare time. During this period,Jeri also started college, but would later drop-out due to a mismatch campus lifestyle from what she wanted. In 2004 her computer chip skills paid off in a big way. Ellsworth developed a Commodore 64 chip that could fit inside a old game controller and house 30 playable games all within this controller through a direct connection to a TV set. Ellsworth sold 100,000s of these units. She even sold 70,000 alone in one day through a local QVC special she did. Needless to say, Jeri Ellsworth is one entrepreneur who has done quite well. Since then she continues now as a consultant on various projects for different companies as she so desires continuing her passion for computer circuitry in her spare time.

Lessons Learned:

While important in many situations, the number of degrees you have does not always define your success (Jeri succeeded through self education in the things that inspired her most)
One can make a career of small business and entrepreneurship even at just the local level as we saw here.
Entrepreneurship is not defined in any one way (Ellsworth invented something and owned a few small businesses thus far).
One of the most important things is that you actually try (Ellsworth took chances to get where she is)
A desire to learn and try new things is crucial as a entrepreneur

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Drew Curtis of Fark.com.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and her entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources:

Entrepreneurship Characteristics For Everyone

Steve — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:51:06 +0000

Courtesy of Andrew Mo

Happy Monday to you! Here we are at the start of the week, but also at the end of this three part post series on entrepreneurship characteristics! Last week I wrote a second article on some of the more important characteristics an entrepreneur should aim to develop if they don’t already have them. Today, we conclude that conversation on entrepreneurship characteristics by looking at the last five major characteristics any entrepreneur should be striving for. Not only are these final 5 crucial to entrepreneurs, but also anyone who operates in the business world be it big or small business.

The Final Five:

So without any further delay lets jump right into things. Here now are the final 5 (for this mini series anyway) characteristics you’ll want to try and develop should you desire to be a successful entrepreneur:

Use technology strategically: There is a piece of technology out there to help you do just about everything! Know what you need and learn the best way to leverage it.
Make some noise: Make your presence know on and off the net. People need to know your name and face as an entrepreneur.
Own your niche: I’ll say it again. Own what you do and success will come to you. Be the expert!
Master the art of communication: Contracts, partners, deals, buying, selling, and so on is all part of being an entrepreneur. Knowing how to communicate your ideas and thoughts to others is crucial.
Know when to take time off: Lastly, you need to know when it’s time for a break (even a small one). We all get burned out and it seems to happen more often to people running their own small business. Know your limits and when it’s time to recharge the batteries.

You are your own boss (or soon might be), which makes the entrepreneurship characteristics you possess so important as they are tools that will guide your actions throughout your career down this exciting path. No one is saying you need to have all these characteristics to be a success, but it will definitely help you to succeed should you take the time to grow these characteristics.

How To Build A Business From the Ground Up

Steve — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:35:12 +0000

I’m currently in the process of reading the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and actually almost done for that matter (book review coming soon!). I have featured Tim Ferriss on this site in the past for various entrepreneur related topics (The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Tim Ferriss). He is a pretty interesting guy who has found one path to entrepreneur success inspiring many others to do the same. The other day I came across this in-depth interview with Tim where he discusses in good detail some of his past businesses and how he built his own business from the ground up. It’s a great interview worth the watch and pretty recent. Check it out and don’t forget to leave a comment before you go.

Run time: 54 min

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Drew Curtis

Steve — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:06:42 +0000

Courtesy of Laughing Squid

Fark.com is a social community website where users submit interesting news links and comment on them. What started as a simple news link sharing website has turned into a multimillion dollar grossing site for on entrepreneur. Not only does Fark gross millions each year now, but it was actually the first reported blog style site to break the one million dollars a year marker. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Drew Curtis in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Drew Curtis
Age: 37
Location: Kentucky
Claim to fame: Fark.com (Social community website where users submit interesting news links and comment on them.)
Initial cost: <$1000

How He Did It:

Drew Curtis was born in 1973 in Kentucky and graduated from Luther College in Iowa in 1995. Shortly after graduating college, he started a small local ISP Provider business covering a few local counties. Curtis registered the domain Fark.com in 1997, but did not do anything with it until later in 1999 when he launched the Fark.com service we all know today. He came up with the idea as a solution to a problem he was having with his friends where he would always be sending random links almost daily numerous times to different friends on all different topics through email, which was always a bit of a hassle. His solution was Fark.com; a place where anyone could submit news stories on a variety of topics and people could comment and discuss in the process basically centralizing his hobby of link emailing. Fark has since become a multimillion dollar business with 1000s of link submissions each day.

Lessons Learned:

Success takes time to fully realize (Curtis ran with the site for several year before hitting the mainstream. Building a following takes time for any web business).
Take action today on future projects (A simple step for the future such a reserving a domain name can go a long way down the road.)
The best ideas often come from solutions to everyday problems
Building an online business takes time, but can lead to many other avenues of success (i.e. books, etc…)
Give your idea the resources and time to grow to see the true potential

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Seth Godin of Squidoo.com.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur and his entrepreneurship characteristics. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources:

Finding Your Own Entrepreneurship Characteristics

Steve — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:51:45 +0000

Courtesy of iQconcept

Welcome to part II of this three part post series! Last week I wrote an article on some of the important characteristics an entrepreneur should aim to develop if they don’t already have them. I received a few emails asking if there were any other entrepreneurship characteristics they should be looking to achieve, which inspired me to turn my post from last week into a three part series on the topic. Today, we continue that conversation on finding your own entrepreneurship characteristics as we look at five additional equally important ones.

Take Two:

So without any further delay lets jump right into things today since you probably got the basic gist of where this is going from my last post. Here now are another 5 characteristics to note:

Know what your customers want: Take time to figure this out and you’ll be well on your way
Be the expert: Invest the time and education needed to become an expert of your craft.
Control your brand: Be active on social networks, your website/blog, etc… to let others know what you’re all about.
Educate yourself constantly: Things change fast – take the time to keep current with the relevant trends, technology, etc…
Become unique: Find ways to seperate you and your business from the norm. Stand out and offer a competitive advantage.

Being an entrepreneur is all about growth and development. It’s not just growth in your business though, but also about the growth and development within yourself as an entrepreneur. Your small business start-up will continue to depend on your ability to control and manage the situation. You are your own boss, which makes the entrepreneurship characteristics you possess so important as they are tools that will guide your actions throughout your career down this exciting path. Remember to leave a comment before you go and look for part 3 coming soon!

Tax Tips For Any Entrepreneur Running A Business

Steve — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:46:43 +0000

Courtesy of curious spider

Whether you’re a entrepreneur who has been in the game for several years or you’re just starting to get your toes wet, making sure you take the time to file your small business earnings properly is a must unless you want a very unpleasant visit from Uncle Sam. It’s frustrating enough to file my regular taxes most years, but even more so now trying to figure out how to include my entrepreneur ventures (well the ones that profited) on top of it. Fear not for I have some excellent tax tips for any entrepreneur running a business that are sure to make your next filing much easier.

Tax Saving Tips

Filling taxes for your home-based business or online start-up may be annoying, but it doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Some folks over at CNN (source below) were kind enough to highlight some useful tips when filing your taxes as a small business owner. Here now are the crucial ones every entrepreneur should note:

Be able to prove your self-employment (business) is legit: save documents, receipts, etc…
Maintain a separate bank account for your home grown business to simplify tax preparation
Avoid many large expenses with your business if possible as these are red flags for an IRS auditor
Higher a professional tax accountant if you’re income is at the higher end of the pay scale
Remember to make sure your business is registered properly (LLC, copyright, trandemarks, etc…)

While there is no full proof method for avoiding a tax audit, taking the steps above and assuring you file correctly as an entrepreneur will greatly help reduce the risk of you having to go through such a mess. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

Source:Cnn.com

The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Seth Godin

Steve — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:12:25 +0000

Courtesy of minaka

Squidoo.com is Social community website where users create pages on any topic they find interesting. Combining ease of use along with an active community where people can read, share, and explore information in many different forms was one entrepreneurs key to success. Squidoo not only brings in huge traffic amounts each month, but also some solid profit along with it. For this and more we take a look at entrepreneur Seth Godin in the spotlight this week. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.

Summary:

Name: Seth Godin
Age: 49
Location: New York
Claim to fame: Squidoo.com (Social community website where users create pages on any topic they find interesting.)
Initial cost: <$1000

How He Did It:

Seth Godin grew up in the New York area and later graduated with a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy from Tufts University. He then obtained his MBS from Stanford Business School at about 24 years old. Godin would work the next three years of his life as a Brand Manager for a small software firm. Godin then went onto work for himself as a book packager, which is where a publishing company outsources the research and writing of a book to what is called a book packager only to be bought back in the end by the publishing company to sell to the masses. Godin sold this off a few years later to his employees to pursue a few side projects. Godin began writing books on marketing and the information age in the mid 1990s and has since published over 10 books with his most recent in January, 2010. Godin would launch Squidoo in 2006 wher eusers could come create pages on any topic they find interesting with ease and share them with the world. The site has seen huge growth in traffic and profits over the past few years. The site is currently in the top 500 of most visited sites in the world!

Lessons Learned:

There is no one path for anyone looking to be an entrepreneur (Seth played the role of manager, book packager, developer, author, and entrepreneur through his life.)
Take every job/opportunity to learn more and develop yourself further in preparation for whats to come.
Remember to be open to new ideas, people, and walks of life (Godin had many different jobs that allowed him to find his success. He wasn’t any one role forever.)
Decide what’s important to you and then go for it. You are the only one that can take action and make it happen. Stop waiting!
Try and try again as they say! You probably won’t be successful first time around, but hats off to you if you are. The important thing is to keep trying and to learn from your mistakes.

Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Trip Adler of Scribd.com.

Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.

Sources: